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Monday, May 25, 2009

My entry to the One Page Dungeon Contest. I tried to incorporate player choice into it from the very first room. I'm afraid I may have added too much detail based on my own "story" of how characters might encounter this place. I think what made adventures B1 and B2 work so well was the room to fill in your own details and fit them into your world. I'd like to try running a party through it and make some revisions based on how that goes.

I envisioned this for lower level parties. They'll get wet, miserable, and, if the treasure is adjusted appropriately, rich.

I've known about blogging for years, but never found a reason to post my own thoughts publicly. Until now. I came back from living abroad about a year ago or I might have noticed the Old School Renaissance sooner. As it is I've been reading every blog I can find that seems relevant in the past few months. I feel like this is a public discussion I want to take part in and so, I will.

My first introduction to roleplaying was 79 or 80. I was introduced to 1e. I was given the Moldvay B/X set as a gift from a friend as well, but we took the "Basic" set as a stepping stone meant to be used only until one was capable to move up to "Advanced" (Which was what TSR intended). And so we put all our attention into 1e.

I still love all the richness of detail, sometimes hidden, in the 1e DMG. But even then, we found it confusing and contradictory. While the weapon speeds and weapon bonuses vs. different ACs were the kinds of realistic, gritty details that appealed to us, we just never remembered them in the heat of play.

With the retro-clones I'm finding enough rules to provide boundaries for play without constraining play. That's what I'm most interested in, how do we find the elegant balance between the richness of the specific and the practical of the abstract. To that end I plan to post or comment house rules or suggestions I've found recently, as well as, some of my own ruminations.